Typically, florists are independently owned and operated and serve local communities by providing timely fresh arrangements, plants and related gifts for a variety of occasions. Wire services provide networks for these independent florists and facilitate the transfer of orders, allowing for delivery of fresh flowers around the world. Consumers are often presented with descriptions or photographs of possible floral arrangements from which to select.
Various attempts have been made to automate the processing of floral arrangements for customers. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0082853 by Goodwin discloses a photo delivery service system which includes delivering a digital image of a recipient receiving a gift to the sender of the gift. When placing an order online, by phone or at a storefront, the sender gives the merchant the sender's email address or postal address. The sender places an order with a delivery address and a delivery person with a digital camera delivers the gifts. When the gift is handed to the receiver, the delivery person captures at least one digital image with the camera of the gift and the person. The image can also be a video and audio clip from a digital camcorder. The receiver can also attach a short message of thanks to the image. The image is then sent to the sender. A server database holds a library of delivered flowers, gifts or other goods, and can be referenced for future orders. For example, if a customer comes back to a merchant flower store in a few months and asks for the same arrangement they previously ordered, the merchant can use the customer's stored image to reproduce a similar flower arrangement.
U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2002/0007321 and 2002/0055878 by Burton disclose systems and methods for ordering flower arrangements. For example, the system may display a vase that allows the user to fill in flowers one stem or stalk at a time. In addition, a display may include a content area that displays information about user orders such as current, future, or past orders. The system may also provide a display for record keeping purposes. In this regard, the display may be used to show order history, accounting data, or any information relevant to users when accessing accounts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,479 issued to Hutton discloses a floral kiosk system which interacts with a floral ordering network and which allows users to either select a particular floral arrangement or create a floral arrangement from an assortment of flowers, flower configurations, and flower holders. In one embodiment, the method includes storing predefined floral data in a database of a user station (the floral data including a plurality of flowers, a plurality of flower configurations, and a plurality of flower holders), retrieving the floral data from the database and displaying the retrieved floral data on display means integrally associated with the user station. A customer then selects floral data displayed on the display means so that at least one of the plurality of flowers, at least one of the flower configurations, and at least one of the flower holders are selected to create the floral arrangement. To complete the purchase, the created arrangement is ordered from the user station utilizing an integral network interface which is operatively connected to a remote floral network.
There is a need for further methods and systems for collecting, storing, and retrieving data regarding personalized floral arrangements linked to a customers' personal accounts.